Storage devices commonly implement data backup operations using virtual storage products for data recovery. Some virtual storage products have multiple backend storage devices that are virtualized so that the storage appears to a client as discrete storage devices, while the backup operations may actually be storing data across a number of the physical storage devices.
Deduplication is a known technique which reduces the storage capacity needed to store backup data as compared to other backup techniques. In a deduplication example, each backup job (or portion of a backup job) stored on the virtual tape may be held in a different deduplication store, and each deduplication store may further be held in a different storage node. In order to access data for the restore operation, since different sections of the virtual cartridge may be in different deduplication stores, the virtual drive may need to search non-contiguous storage blocks and/or move to different nodes as the restore operation progresses through the virtual cartridge. While non-deduplication schemes are faster, deduplication consumes less storage space.
The user may decline to use capacity-saving backup scheme, such as deduplication, in such virtualized storage environments. Alternatively, the user may partition the backup device into different targets (e.g., different virtual libraries), such that different backup retention times are grouped together. Unfortunately, this policy increases the user administration load because now the user cannot just simply direct all backups to a single backup target, and instead has to direct each backup job to the appropriate target.
Forcing the user to choose between using capacity-saving backup schemes, such as deduplication, or having to perform more administrative tasks, is counter to the value proposition of an enterprise backup device where the goal is to reduce disk space consumption and reduce or altogether eliminate user administration tasks.